Relaxation in Everyday Life
With an Appendix on Stammering. :Author: E. J. Boome, M.R.C.P., D.P.H., and M. A. Richardson, late Therapist, Relaxation Therapy Department, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. Methuen, 5/-.
This book contains much valuable advice on the attainment and maintenance of mental and physical health. It is particularly welcome at the present time when the stresses and strains of everyday life are increasing so rapidly and it is more than ever necessary that we should learn adequately to cope with them. One is impressed by the everyday nature of many of the examples given. As the introduction states, the book has been written for ” The Man in the Streetand the problems and maladjustments of the ordinary individual are analysed and discussed in direct and non-technical language. Many cases of complete re-adjustment by means of therapeutic relaxation are also cited.
Reading of such achievements, the man in the street must honestly admit that in relaxation there is a definite therapeutic method. It is not a fad or a dubious experiment but an established method of re-education. It is an art which needs to be learned, but when the technique is mastered and regularly practised, it may lead ” to a re-creating of the individual”.
To beginners, both warning and encouragement are frequently given. The method is simple, the results at first small, and progress often slow, but we are assured that ” Relaxation will always work its way to the end if the patient perseveres.” Actually, the quiet perseverance demanded is itself a part of the re-educative process involved, for even in simple cases much readjustment is necessary. When nervous tension and emotional instability are severe and have become habitual, the aid of a Therapist is advisable to teach and encourage muscular relaxation, but in less severe cases, the individual may successfully treat himself by following the directions given in this book.
In Chapter IV lies the particular value of the book, for here are given specific directions with safeguards and their results. Just exactly what to do, how to do it, and what to expect from it, are explained, including information on correct breathing and on dealing with specific restrictions by the deliberate use of colour imagery. In the chapter on ” Suggestion the use of imagery in curative auto-suggestion is convincingly discussed and quotations from other helpful sources are included in the text. Simple and practical examples are given in this connection, with the oftrepeated advice to proceed by degrees. In Chapter VII the use of therapeutic relaxation for disorders such as insomnia, exophthalmic goitre, epilepsy, asthma, etc., is recommended as an aid to medical treatment. Enuresis can also be successfully treated in many cases as a result of the restoration of confidence and self-respect engendered through the release brought by relaxation.
In the Appendices the treatment of stammering is fully discussed. When carried out by the aid of a therapist, treatment by relaxation has effected, we are told, many complete cures of obstinate cases, and in referring to results achieved in L.C.C. Classes for Stammerers the authors draw attention to the fact that cases which have made little progress over a period of three or more years, sometimes are suddenly and completely cured.
This is a wise and heartening book which will bring help to many people, particularly to those suffering from nervous over-tension and its accompanying fatigue. D. P.
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